Choreography

Below are samples of ICONography Dance’s choreography.

“Recycle Reality” (2016)

Choreography: Ila Conoley Paladino / ICONography Dance
Dancers:  Theresa Bautista, Amanda Browning, Amber Marquez
Music: Mozart / Horn Quintet In E Flat, 3. Allegro / Academy Of St. Martin In The Fields Chamber Ensemble; Mozart / Allegretto / Ingrid Haebler; “Record Spins Backwards and Scratches Serato Mix” by Sound Effects Fx and Soundtrack
* The rest of the music for this work is chosen at random by an audience member from a selection of 30 pieces.

Program Note:
Members of the audience will be asked to choose the dancer’s reaction to their realities. This section is a structured improvisation.
Another audience member will choose the musical selections for the recycling of the realities by choosing a shape from a letter they receive during the piece. Each shape represents a playlist. The dancers do not know which piece will be selected and are not familiar with the musical selections – except for some of the more infamous works.

Choreographer’s Note:
We all make choses everyday that create our realities. We may live in oblivion that we are responsible for our reality or we may blame others for our situation. However, at some point that reality hits us in the face – arriving as clearly as a written letter. We have the opportunity to recycle our realities through making different choices including our emotional outlook.  How does our reality change with a new outlook? How is our daily routine affected? What about our relationships?

 

40 Winks (2015) (click here for complete information)

 

 

“Alternate Endings” (2014) (click here to watch the preview)

choreography: Ila Conoley Paladino
music: Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera arranged and performed by the Kronos Quartet and Wu Tan

Program Note:
With thematic inspiration from the ancient Chinese Nuo dances of exorcism “Alternate Endings” explores the process of confronting and exorcising our personal demons. The dancers feel the weight of their demons on their backs and work to free themselves from the weight by plucking, pulling, and pressing. The masks in the Nuo dances transform and empower the dancers and represent the present evil. Posy Knight creates a film providing thematic support as well as scenic and lighting design. The film highlights the creation and destruction of the mask(s) emphasizing the circularity of our journeys. Reality and facade eerily intermingle through light and shadow.

Choreographer’s Statement:
This is my first work in Louisville, KY choreographed for the technical and diverse dancers of the Moving Collective. The dancers are true professionals bringing emotional maturity to their individual stories. They exceed my expectations in each rehearsal creating adventurous and vibrant movement. They are equally willing to move fully as to delve into their characters. The dancers’ emotional connection to the work enables the audience to relate to the dancer’s individual characters.
From the choreography to the film projection the process is fascinating and utterly connected. We enter rehearsals with specific ideas but react in the moment allowing the dancers and the energy of the moment to guide the project. Ms Knight captivated the dancers and pulled from them both beautiful connections and dark edges. When I commissioned Ms Knight I was not only thinking of her innate ability to connect to the ideas of a work but also the ease of which she melds and distorts those ideas to create perfect nuance. The projection is more than scenic design. It is the back story of “Alternate Endings.” Ms Knight aptly, effortlessly, and ingeniously contributed to all aspects of this work.

(Click here for review by Keith Waits of Arts-Louisville.com.)

“Alternate Endings” by Matthew Paladino

 

 

 Trials and Tribulations of an A-Hole (2014) for 6 for 12 Productions in collaboration with Christian Medovich, Jessica Russ Medovich, and Tiffany Tinsley Weeks

(click here to watch the preview)

Click here to read more.

This evening length dance theater production profiles that a-hole we all hate to love and love to hate. We shake our heads at his behavior but laugh at his jokes. We scoff at his behaviors but buy him a drink.

photography by Aaron Graves

 

“No Reality Between Us” 2012 (click here to view)

What concerns me is the fragility of sanity. Think of your everyday. Remember that thing that hides in your dark corners. We are all delving, daily, through the fog of our own minds. Sinking, at our own speeds, to the level of insanity most fitting to us.

Music: John Zorn, Kronos Quartet: Forbidden Fruit

 

“Saddled to his Dreams” 2011 (click here to view)

Each character has a different story, a different struggle, a different addiction. The lines blur between victim and support system. Who is helping or hurting whom? Is one addiction worse than another? The goal is to not give up during the struggle. The goal is to continue to fight through the struggle, pulling oneself up and over the prickly wall — most likely into a new struggle. Accepting that the journey is paved with challenges, even emptiness. Recognizing that succeeding past struggles is merely making decisions that propel us to our desired path.

 

“unrecognized beauty” 2011 (click here to view)

“unrecognized beauty” takes inspiration from visual artist Floyd Tunson’s work with a soundscape composed and performed by Glenn Whitehead. The work focuses on lost possibilities because of unrecognized beauty due to racism and other injustices. The work was performed at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center gallery.

 

“Chocolate” 2010 (part 1), (part 2), (part 3)

“Chocolate” is a work loosely based on the novel Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. The work is choreographed in collaboration with Posy Knight and explores the link between food, emotion, and relationships.

Music: “Mal D’Aurore” by Steven Severin; “U Plavu Zoru” by Pink Martini; “Pobre Flor” by Alfredo de Angelis; “Tashweesh (Interference)” by Ramallah Underground, arr. Kronos & J. Garlik;  “Oh! My Mama” by Alela Diane; “Wa Habibi” Traditional arr. S. Prutsman

 

“Four Women” (2010)

This work mimics the song on which it was based, “Four Women” by Nina Simone. It describes through movement the lyrics of Simone’s famed work about African-American female stereotypes.

Music: “Wild Is the Wind” by Nina Simone and “Fatres” by Arvo Part

“Four Women”
Dancers: Mary Ripper Baker, Kim Davagian, Emily Gold, & Tiffany Tinsley Weeks
Photography: Alberto Leopizzi

“Four Women”
Dancer: Tiffany Tinsley Weeks
Photography: Alberto Leopizzi

 

 

 

Nezabudka (2009) for 6 for 12 Productions in collaboration with Christian Medovich and Jessica Russ Medovich

Nezabudka is an evening length dance theater production that demonstrates a day in the life of good and evil and emphasizes the importance of their balance. The four elements and a group of humans lose balance when good and evil tip the scales.

“Nezabudka”
Dancers: Kim Davagian & Mary Ripper Baker
Photography: Alberto Leopizzi

 

“Encapsulate”
Dancer: Posy Knight
Photography Bill Starr

 

 

“Encapsulate” 2009

This work takes inspiration from the Dalí painting “The Persistence of Memory” investigating how time feels in different circumstances.

Music:String Quartet No. 3 by Phillip Glass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“4817 Kisses”
Dancer: Rosey Puloka
Photographer: Alberto Leopizzi

“4817 Kisses” 2008 with Jessica Russ Medovich

“4817 Kisses” is a story of two young lovers separated by war. The work shows the effect war has on relationships. At the climax the dancers each carry a stone representing the burden that they bare via the separation and solitude. The title represents the number of US soldiers who had died in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time the premier of the work.

Music: “Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra I, II, III by Golijov

“4817 Kisses”
Dancers: Michael Heinrich and Samy Jo Lundy
Photographer: Alberto Leopizzi

 

 

“Drenched in White” 2007 (click here to view)

Sometimes we must jump across the dark abyss of the unknown in order to move through our struggle. We may stand on the edge, stagnant, nervous, wondering but it is only when we dive full-force into the blackness in front of us that we land on the other side on solid ground.

Music: Title: String Quartet No.4; Composer: Bela Bartok; Performers: Juilliard String Quartet

 

“Drenched in White”